Singapore Airlines Flight SQ321 was flying from London’s Heathrow Airport to Singapore when it hit turbulence, injuring many passengers and crew on board. Photo / AP
After plummeting 54m in less than five seconds, passengers recall what was, for many flyers, a nightmare scenario
For some, it was the beginning of a trip of a lifetime. For others, it was a normal journey home, a chance to reunite with friends and family.
And as Singapore Airlines Flight SQ321 entered the last portion of its 13-hour trip from London to Singapore on May 21, the pilots, too, were no doubt thinking this was just another day in their office, 11,000m above Myanmar’s Irrawaddy Basin.
And then, as Singapore Airlines would later put it, the 16-year-old Boeing 777-300ER carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew encountered “sudden extreme turbulence”. It dropped 54m in less than five seconds.
But it was enough to provoke a fatal heart attack in 73-year-old theatre director Geoffrey Kitchen, inflict life-changing injuries for others – of the 71 treated, 26 are still in hospital with skull, brain, spinal, and bone injuries – and an incredibly traumatic experience for everyone on board.
As Jerry, 68, from Reading, the United Kingdom, says: “It was the worst day of my life. It was a little bit bumpy and then suddenly it’s like we fell off a cliff. There were people somersaulting through the cabin.”
Jerry might count himself fortunate to escape with a minor head injury given he collided with the ceiling at major G forces.
Bradley Richards, 29, an Openreach engineer from Benfleet, Essex, tells the Telegraph: “It felt like something from a movie, not real life”.
Richards was on his way to Bali to visit friends via what was meant to be a layover in Singapore before getting a second flight to Indonesia.
“I was asleep or I think I might have been knocked unconscious when it happened. I remember waking up and blood was just pouring from my head; there were kids screaming and people running around everywhere.
“It was all so traumatic. I remember I felt the back pain straight away. I tried to use my cushion – one of the ones they hand out on flights – to stem the blood pouring from my head.”
Andrew Davies, from Stockton, recalls the “surreal, scary experience” of seeing people, belongings, phones, cushions, teacups, plates, “just hurtling through the cabin”.
“There was coffee on the ceiling and a woman covered with blood from a deep gash in her head. In the seat behind me there was a man who was motionless and they were trying to find a pulse. I got up and helped and they performed CPR but sadly he passed away.”
It does feel like the word “sudden” in many passenger accounts – and the Singapore Airlines statement – is key to understanding (and sympathising with) exactly what happened on board Flight SQ321.
It’s a story where descriptions such as “terrifying”, “horrific”, and “complete havoc” have been regularly repeated by passengers.
“It was really, really quick,” says student Dzafran Azmir. “Which is why I think nobody could really respond to it. I was in my chair but I was belted in. I saw people from across the aisle just going completely horizontal, hitting the ceiling and landing back down in really awkward positions.
Azmir, perhaps inadvertently, hit upon the real lesson from Flight SQ321.
Anyone who was wearing a seatbelt at the time had a deeply unpleasant flight, rather than a life-threatening one.
As Australian Ali Bukhari puts it: “It was just like going down a vertical roller coaster … oxygen masks had all come out, parts of the interior of the plane were damaged … I thought that was from the force of the turbulence but a lot of it was just because everyone who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt flew right into the air and hit the ceiling.”
Which is not to apportion blame. Wearing a seatbelt isn’t mandatory, and whether the seatbelt signs were on at the time of the extreme turbulence is a matter which will have to wait for the full investigation.
The preliminary findings of Singapore’s Transport Safety Investigation Bureau, published last week, suggest that the pilot switched the signs on 10 seconds into the first altitude changes (the entire incident from first vibrations to levelling out took 19 seconds). Some passengers – such as Azmir – report they heard no such announcements. In any case, anyone walking around the cabin or not strapped in would have had just eight seconds to buckle up before the extreme turbulence event.
More unfortunate still, although it was early afternoon local time, the nature of the time difference and the take off time from London late the previous evening meant many passengers were stretching their legs, going to the toilet and getting ready for the meal service. Some may even have been still asleep.
“The crew was with the breakfast, we were both in our seats,” says Spaniard Iago Peteiro Pereda. There was a prior hint of turbulence as he remembered it. Enough for his wife Estrella to put her belt on, at least, and for Pereda to reach for his. But he didn’t get strapped in quickly enough.
“I hit the ceiling and I landed on the armrest, sitting down, in a vertical position. It was very rough, very quick … a matter of seconds.”
Pereda has since been diagnosed with one fracture in his vertebrae and is wearing a neck brace. No wonder Pereda says that “everything was a nightmare ... people were flying, hitting, blood, things flying around, everything broken”.
Indeed, such was the sudden force of the incident some still don’t remember it at all. Josh Silverstone, a broker from South London, just woke up on the floor with what turned out to be minor injuries. “I didn’t realise what happened,” he says. “I must have hit my head somewhere.”
Not that his lack of recollection is a mercy. “I thought I was going to die. I bought some airplane Wi-Fi and texted my mum, trying not to scare her, and just saying I love you. It was pretty scary.”
Richards adds: “Once we landed, I was near the back of the plane and I remember the medical staff running on and having to step over all the injured people on the floor”.
“They couldn’t get a stretcher to me so I was supported off the plane – I told them about my spinal pain and the workers had to pick me up, support me under my armpits and carry me to a wheelchair.”
He had internal bleeding on the front of his body and also in his spinal cord, with multiple fractures in his spine and neck. Doctors have said he probably won’t be able to work as an engineer again. “It’s just gutting – I’ve worked in that role for seven years and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” he says.
The full investigation will no doubt want to ascertain whether the seatbelt signs could have gone on earlier still. The preliminary report merely says the flight was “likely flying over an area of developing convective activity”.
Again, this is not to blame the pilots; turbulence happens all the time and is usually predictable enough that if necessary, the seatbelt signs will go on. It’s when “clear air” turbulence occurs in these weather systems – cloudless and difficult to detect – that these sudden events are provoked.
One suspects the reason Flight SQ321 is still making headlines two weeks on is because these passenger accounts contain all the classic tropes of a disaster movie: the violence of the event, the commonality of the screams.
It is, really, the worst nightmare of any fearful flyer. And yet, here is some comfort. The plane landed safely after diverting to Bangkok. It didn’t break up and fall out of the sky – that hasn’t happened to any commercial aircraft for nearly 60 years.
Still, there are always further lessons to learn from events such as these. Singapore Airlines have since implemented interim measures to cease cabin service completely when seatbelt signs are switched on. Experts have also suggested that pilots should be better trained in using their instruments to spot clear-air turbulence. But the take-home from this turbulent week is loud and clear – buckle up.
Pilot Brian Smith, who has been flying aircraft such as the 777 for 25 years, says that “99 per cent of the time we can tell turbulence is going to happen”.
“The weather might forecast it, you can see it ahead, air traffic control will tell you that traffic on the same route is experiencing turbulence.
“So we mitigate that by putting the seatbelt sign on and getting passengers to sit down. But this Singapore Airlines flight is an unfortunate incident which ultimately comes down to the question of whether we want to live our lives risk-free.
“If you go to the toilet, which you obviously must on a long flight, and that second hit an area of clean air turbulence that hasn’t been foreseen or forecast or radioed ahead by another aircraft, then I’m afraid it’s just not your day. There’s an element of luck involved.
“But I must also say that I’ve been flying civilian aircraft since 1999 and I’ve never experienced severe turbulence. It’s exceedingly rare.”
Smith says that planes are built to withstand buffeting, and deal with moderate turbulence routinely.
“The problems come when loose objects – be that things or people – are inside the cabin. Which is why I would always say just listen to the advice we give and keep your seatbelt on while seated.”
In fact, Smith says the real step change for pilots dealing with turbulence these days isn’t so much the mechanics of handling the aircraft through it, but having the soft skills to deal with the aftermath.
On SQ321, there were passengers lying in the aisle even as the plane descended into Bangkok, such were their spinal injuries. Others were crying in extreme pain or fear. Panic attacks were reported. And most distressingly, CPR and a defibrillator were being put into action – unsuccessfully.
“Being a pilot is no longer just about getting in an aircraft, starting it and flying,” Smith says. “You have to manage up to 18 crew and 300 passengers on a 777.
“So you have an obligation to try and pre-warn and get people strapped in if you can, but then speak with your team if there is any incident, reassure people, get medical assistance and get the aircraft to the nearest suitable airport before getting people off to hospital. Our training is about managing these situations and I think that was certainly the case on SQ321.”
Singapore Airlines’ temporary suspension of cabin services while the seatbelt signs are on certainly makes sense. It has always felt faintly odd that trolleys of boiling hot drinks can be pushed around by cabin crew appearing to be in a precarious balancing act as their aircraft jolts around the sky.
But, as Kristina Galvydte, who was once employed as cabin crew on a low-cost airline, suggests, how sustainable this will be in the long term is less clear. There are margins – particularly for the low-cost airlines – to make. And even though Hong Kong’s Greater Bay Airlines this week made it a requirement for passengers to fasten seatbelts at all times, Galvydte doesn’t think their initiative will catch on either.
“I don’t think we can have a seatbelt ‘rule’ – cabin crew would have to police passengers constantly which might result in disruptive situations,” she says. “But my first thought when I heard about SQ321 was there is a reason why passengers are advised to keep their seatbelts loosely fastened.
“When I was working as cabin crew, we had a few bad turbulence moments where things flew in the air, bags were falling out of the lockers, and my colleague ended up with a cracked cheekbone.
“So the main thing is to secure the cabin once the seatbelt signs go on. The reality is that turbulence happens, it just doesn’t normally happen as severely as we have seen on this flight.”
Two Danish citizens and an American have also reportedly died.